A personal journey

Judicare's CEO is former footballer NEIL HEANEY, who played as a winger for a number of British clubs as well as England U21. Neil began his football career at an early age for London club Arsenal's youth squad in 1987. From then on, Heaney became renowned as a winger with pace and drive, reflected in an extensive career spanning across several teams over thirteen years. After nine senior appearances for Arsenal, his career progressed through transfer to Southampton in 1995 where he enjoyed a successful period in the Premiership with the Saints. Having signed in 1996 with Manchester City, he then moved to Charlton Athletic, helping them gain promotion to the Premiership via the famous Wembley playoff final of 1997. Neil saw out his career at Plymouth Argyle before a premature end in December 2002 due to injury.

After retirement and like a number of his footballing colleagues before him, Neil's focus turned to the property investment market in the UK. It wasn't long before he expanded his portfolio to off-plan opportunities overseas, but as Neil relates, not without its drawbacks; "Along with many friends from football, I set about investing in a dream property development in Spain; the development was later to encounter problems, resulting in my group of investors pursuing the developer through the Spanish courts to recover our initial deposits.

"After numerous failed attempts by our group to find trustworthy firms to represent us, I came across Judicare. The company had a good track record of addressing issues like ours and went to the lengths of flying their legal team to the UK to meet with us to explain the route to recovery of our lost monies. They simplified what was an extremely complex procedure and were a constant reassurance throughout the course of action.

"Through my network of friends, family and former playing colleagues who knew of my involvement in the legal case in Spain, I began to receive approaches to offer advice and to assist others with similar problems in Spain. Before long I was being asked to help with issues in other countries such as Dubai, Cyprus and Portugal. The sheer scale of the problems that investors were encountering with purchases overseas started to become apparent."

"With no real single solution and reference point that I could find, I decided to team-up with Jose Dorta - the Chairman of the Judicare Group - to create a UK based legal services company that could offer specialist advice and recovery action for investors with overseas property disputes all around the world.

"We now have local expertise on the ground internationally, providing investors with the help they need to recover what in some cases are entire life's savings. Throughout my footballing career my focus was on doing the best I could, in the privileged position of earning a very good living - though for only a few years - playing the game I loved. Now the boot is on the other foot - people's futures are at stake. It's a great feeling to be able to help people in that position."